


if i knew the way to less alone

by inmylife



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, this is a mausoleum fic guys proceed with caution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26743501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inmylife/pseuds/inmylife
Summary: lila and klaus aren't close.and then, suddenly, they are.(or, this time he doesn't go it alone.)(or, lila lives a nightmare, just for a few hours.)(they make it through.)
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Lila Pitts
Comments: 2
Kudos: 75





	if i knew the way to less alone

**Author's Note:**

> this takes a little bit of mental gymnastics, but the fic takes place in an au where 1. at the end of s2, lila time travels back with them, 2. there is no sparrow academy, 3. they are all teenagers again and have just kinda... replaced their previous selves in the timeline. reginald... has not questioned lila showing up, was just kinda like "cool, another superpowered child", and rotates her through everyone else's training sessions. just roll with it lmao
> 
> title from [everyone is gonna love me now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHnedneMfm0) by ingrid michaelson

she isn’t sure where they’re going, but klaus looks sick to his stomach. he’s not looking at her. no, instead, his eyes are unfocused; he looks wound up, tight as a spring. 

lila hasn’t really talked to klaus that much, but she’s suddenly very worried about him. 

the car stops at a cemetery. hargreeves stands and waits, expectantly, as lila and klaus get out of the car. then he ushers them forward, towards the mausoleum at the top of the hill. 

she gets an odd sinking feeling in her stomach, like she knows what’s coming. 

he locks them in. 

“turn it off,” klaus says. his voice sounds small. they’re all thirteen again, sure, that could be part of it, but lila would bet money that even if they were all in their thirty-year-old bodies he would still sound this scared. it’s dark in the mausoleum, so she can’t see him, but she hears his breath stutter and catch. 

“what?”

“my power,” he urges. “turn it off. don’t mimic it. you shouldn’t - i don’t want you to see -“ 

god, he sounds so terrified. 

“no.” lila makes her way towards him through the dark, not mimicking his power for now. “i’m - i don’t know what you’re seeing, right now, but i don’t want you to see it alone.” 

klaus just starts sobbing. it takes a couple tries, but lila manages to find him, to put her arm around him. she is not used to people crying into her like this and she is not sure she likes it, but he needs it right now. 

and if she, too, needs the reassurance that she’s not alone in the cold dark?

well, nobody needs to know. 

lila takes a deep breath. steels herself. lets the ghosts in. 

* * *

“my god,” she whispers. “is that what you hear every day?” 

klaus nods into her shoulder, where he’d pressed his head as soon as she’d hugged him in the dark. he isn’t sure he trusts his voice right now. 

the ghosts scream around them, not just _klausklausklaus_ but _lilalilalila_. it’s a little more bearable this way. with someone else’s name in the mix, yeah, but also with their arms around each other, warm and alive. klaus is locked in here but he’s not locked in here alone and that makes this a million times better. 

lila’s trying to hide it, but she’s scared too. klaus can tell. she’s breathing fast, not quite nearing the edge of a panic attack the way klaus is but quick enough for him to know that she’s losing her cool, and fast. 

“we’re alright,” he murmurs, for his own benefit just as much as hers. “we’re fine. we’re okay.” 

“i could... i could teleport us out?” she suggests shakily. 

“if he gets back and we’re not...”

“right, right, sorry.” he feels her shake her head. “i didn’t think.”

klaus is weirdly grateful he’s only cried the once. that he’s gotten it all out now (or so he tells himself). he’s not... _calm_ , no, but it strikes him that, back when he was _really_ thirteen, this was so much worse. 

“it’s really okay if you want to turn it off, you know,” he assures her. “just having you here is...” 

he doesn’t know how to put it into words in a way that will make her understand how much she’s helping him by being here. which is weird, because he barely knows lila. before time-traveling back to 2002, he had maybe spoken five words to her. but he needs her to know just how much he owes her for this. 

she shifts. “no, i - i hate this. i do. but i don’t want you to go this alone, klaus. i don’t want you to be the only one to know what it’s like.” 

klaus holds on to her tighter. 

“but i don’t want you to know.”

doesn’t she get it? this is the place that haunts his dreams. this is what he sees behind his eyes and what comes crashing into his mind whenever he’s in so much as an elevator alone. he used to curl up in the fetal position in here, on the cold stone floor, and sob and sob and beg for someone anyone to come rescue him; he used to think that maybe he wasn’t alive after all, maybe he was just one of the dead, and he’d dig his fingernails into his arms so tight he’d bled just to remind himself that he still could. he doesn’t want anyone else to live with that.

lila shakes her head. she’s stubborn. 

they sit there for hours. klaus has never timed it. he wondered, sometimes, how long he had been gone for, but he was always too anxious to check the clock before going in and too shaken and dissociated on the way out. 

the door opens. klaus is calmer than he ever was before. reginald calls it progress and lets them both leave. 

on the drive home, they hold hands across the backseat of the car. 

**Author's Note:**

> i am aware that this is the most niche self-indulgent idea for a fic but it just popped into my head fully formed one day and wouldn't leave.
> 
> tbh not my best work or whatever but i wrote this on my phone at 2am ages ago and what the hell, it's these disaster kids' birthday, gotta post
> 
> i'm on tumblr at [deep-hearts-core](https://deep-hearts-core.tumblr.com/), come say hi!


End file.
